


Desperate

by Hyx_Sydin



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: M/M, Mail Order Spouse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26217874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyx_Sydin/pseuds/Hyx_Sydin
Summary: Desperate times call for desperate measures when Mike needs more money than he's ever made in his life for his Grammy's continued care.
Relationships: Mike Ross/Harvey Specter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 147
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Desperate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AMintJulep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMintJulep/gifts).



> Hey AMintJulep, I really hope you like this story! ^_^

_This is for Grammy._

The thought ran through Mike’s head as he rushed through the Chilton Hotel’s hallways wearing an ill-fitting suit. And he would do whatever he could for her. Even marry a complete stranger while pretending to be Russian.

And really, who would have thought that in this day and age you still got mail order brides! But the thing that really boggled his, admittedly impressive, brain was that an actual successful man in the United States of America would need to resort to ordering a spouse from a catalogue.

It had been Trevor’s idea, and later Mike would admit that every single one of Trevor’s ideas have been terrible and he should never agree to any of them. So yeah, Trevor’s idea was for Mike to pretend to be a mail order husband, and then use the money his new spouse was ‘sending over for his trip to America’ to pay Grammy’s medical bill. The exit plan was for Mike to just up and leave as soon as the nursing centre acknowledged receipt of the money, and then lay low for however long it took his new husband to give up looking for him. 

Mike should have asked more questions about how Trevor even knew about any of this, but he’d been desperate for $25,000 and had no other way to get it. Trevor had said the guy he’d been matched with was some schmuck who owned a few used car dealerships that were probably shady, so Mike would be doing a good thing by taking his dirty money and using it for his grandmother. Mike didn’t care as long as he got the money, and that the guy didn’t expect to sleep with him their first night married.

Mike finally reached the right room and paused to straighten his tie, muttering some of the Russian phrases he’d learnt in preparation and hoping his accent wasn’t obviously fake.

“There you are!” A beautiful red-headed woman exclaimed from behind him. She grabbed his arm before he could respond, which was a good thing because it probably would not have been Russian or even thick accented English. 

“My name is Donna,” She enunciated each word slowly and carefully as she tugged him to a room further down the hallway. “Harvey is not a patient man and has to get back to work as soon as he can.”

“You’re prettier than I was expecting,” she said, smiling at him as they paused in front of a door. “But you’re going to need better clothing.”

She opened the door but did not step through, instead she looked at him expectantly.

“Spasibo,” Mike said smiling at her in return and then stepped through.

His eyes were instantly drawn to the only other occupant of the room; Harvey opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. He removed a small slip of paper from his pocket and glanced at it. “Privet.” He glanced at Mike and smiled awkwardly as he said again a little louder, “Privet.”

Mike smiled in return as he nodded his head and responded with a very heavily accented, “Hello.”

“You speak English?” Harvey asked curiously, shrewd eyes watching Mike closely.

“Da,” Mike said but then worried that maybe Harvey had been told that he couldn’t. “Only little.” 

“Good,” Harvey said, sounding relieved and then closed the distance between them with his hand out. “Harvey Specter.”

“Michael,” Mike said in response as they shook, smiling as he added, “Specter.”

“Not yet,” Harvey laughed, managing to make the simple gesture attractive. “I’m going to need you to sign the marriage certificate first.”

He led the way to an open laptop on the large desk which dominated the room and tapped on its touchpad, a moment later the video call he had initiated connected. “Judge Morrison, thank you for agreeing to do this for me.”

Judge Morrison’s smile was wide as he chuckled, “I would clear my entire day’s schedule for this Harvey.”

“Well let’s not make that necessary,” Harvey said, scowling at the other man but his smile did not dim. “This is Michael.” 

Mike stood frozen with indecision as his brain ran a mile a minute; everything about Harvey’s appearance screamed money, his personal assistant’s appearance screamed money, he was on friendly terms with a Judge, he was wearing a very expensive watch, the laptop he was currently using was very expensive… this was obviously not the man Trevor had intended he marry. Mike’s eyes ran over Harvey again but everything about him spoke class, spoke culture and sophistication; this was not a man who owned a used car dealership. If Mike had to guess, he’d say Harvey was a lawyer of some kind. 

Mike was left with two choices; run now and find another way to earn $25,000, or stay and marry Harvey. And really, there was no choice because if there was he wouldn’t even be here right now. 

“Michael?” Harvey was standing right in front of him and looking worried. 

Mike opened his mouth to answer, remembering at the last moment he was meant to be Russian. “Sorry, sorry.”

“If you don’t want to do this-”

“I do,” Mike interrupted Harvey, smiling when he realised what he’d said. “I marry you.”

“If you’re sure?” Harvey asked as he stepped back, shrewd eyes locked with Mike’s. 

“Da,” Mike reaffirmed, thinking only about how doing this would help Grammy.

“Well then,” Judge Morrison’s voice came from the laptop. “Do you Harvey take Michael to be your husband?”

Harvey hesitated as he looked at Mike again, but when all he saw was Mike’s smile he nodded before saying, “I do.” 

“All right then,” Judge Morrison said happily. “If I could just have Michael’s surname?”

“Ross,” Mike answered without thinking, mind still reeling from Harvey's close presence.

Harvey looked at him strangely but the Judge only hummed. “Okay, I’ve just sent you the marriage certificate. I’m going to need you to both sign it, electronically is fine, and send it back to me afterwards. Congratulations Harvey! I look forward to seeing you again.”

The Judge laughed as he ended the video call, leaving the two of them alone. Before either of them could say anything, there was a ping from the laptop. 

“That would be the certificate,” Harvey said as he went to check. 

Mike hoped they would be done soon remembering that Donna had said Harvey needed to get back to work.

“If you could sign here,” Harvey said, moving away from the laptop and gesturing towards its touchpad. “It’ll add your signature to the marriage certificate.” 

Mike nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and stepped towards the laptop. He signed quickly before he could second guess everything again; firmly reminding himself that this was for his Grammy.

“Alright,” Harvey said and then went to open the door. “Donna?”

“You called?” She asked as she walked into the room, eyes on the phone in her hands and a smirk on her lips. “Am I rescheduling the rest of your day?”

“Of course not,” Harvey said, striding across the room to the laptop. “Take Michael and whatever belongings he has to the condo.”

Mike tried not to look too interested in what they were saying. Harvey was completely ignoring him and Mike wondered if that was what the rest of their marriage would be like. Donna glanced up from her phone and smiled at him, probably in the hopes of reassuring him.

“Have Ray pick you up,” Harvey said as he straightened and then closed the laptop. “I’ll take a cab; the sooner I show Jessica this marriage certificate the better.”

“She isn’t going to believe you, especially when she sees Judge Morrison’s name on it.” Donna finally slipped her phone into her dress’ pocket, eyes watching Harvey closely as he shoved the laptop into a bag.

“I’ve paid my buy-in, and now I’m legally married,” Harvey scoffed. “The only thing that matters is that she can’t take my senior partnership away now.” Harvey passed the laptop bag to Donna and then turned to Mike. “I have to get back to work, but I will try to be home for supper. Okay?”

Mike found that he liked the way Harvey was looking at him in concern, and that his voice was gentler than when he’d spoken to Donna. He floundered a bit, stuck on whether he should say yes or da or just nod and worrying about his accent again, before settling on a firm nod.

“Good,” Harvey said, turning to look at Donna who nodded as if he’d given her an instruction. “Then I will see you both later.“ And then Mike's new husband strode from the room.

\---

Harvey was almost asleep when he heard movement from the other bedroom; Michael, his shiny new Russian husband. This was the second night in a row that Michael was having midnight conversations with someone, and tonight Harvey was having none of it. He tossed his bedding aside and headed for the other room but what he heard as he cracked the door open, shocked him into stillness.

"Jenny," Michael whispered urgently into his cellphone in a distinctly American voice. "What am I supposed to do now?"

Harvey stared at Michael, who was obviously not Russian, a fact Harvey's brain seemed to be stuck on, while Michael listened closely to whatever the woman Jenny was saying to him.

"I'm sorry," Michael said, not sounding apologetic at all. "I know this must be hard for you too, but what do I do about Grammy?"

Instead of barging into the room and demanding an answer, Harvey closed the door as quietly as he had opened it and returned to his room. Before, when he'd still believed Michael was actually from Russia, he'd wanted to build their relationship slowly while Michael became accustomed to living in America and learned to speak English better, but now he wanted answers. After firing off a brief message to Vanessa asking her to dig into Michael Ross, Harvey made himself comfortable in bed with the Bainbridge briefs and set to work.

Of course, when he returned home from work later that day, Michael was gone.

\---

Mike woke to someone pounding on his apartment’s door.

“Michael James Ross,” Harvey said as he pushed past Mike as soon as the door was open. “Actually, you're legally Michael James Specter now, my husband.”

Mike heaved a sigh as he closed the door. “I’m sorry.”

“I’d ask for an explanation,” Harvey said, tucking his hands into his pants pockets. “But I already know about your grandmother.”

Mike could feel his eyes widen in shock, “How?”

“You knew why I needed a husband,” Harvey said instead of answering Mike, closing the distance between them. “You could have told me the truth after you found out about the money, I would have helped.”

Mike shook his head as he said, “I didn’t think you’d help. How could I trust anyone after what my own best friend did?”

“What are you talking about?” Harvey asked, clearly confused.

“The money you paid for me,” Mike explained, cringing at the implications of his words. “My best friend, the one who talked me into the whole mail order bride thing, Trevor… he took the money you paid and ran.”

“Did he know why you needed it?” Harvey demanded.

“Of course he fucking did!” Mike exclaimed, pushing away from the door to pace. “I went to him thinking I could borrow the money from him, but he'd been lying to us for months. The truth was that he'd been fired from his job and had just been pretending so we wouldn't find out that he was actually selling weed."

"How did he know about the mail order husband gig?" Harvey asked.

"I don't know," Mike ran a hand through his hair. "Jenny said he left for 'work' as usual but when she got back to the apartment after work there was some of his things missing. When he didn't show up she tried calling him but there was no answer. I went to transfer the money the next day but there was nothing, he'd cleared my account. I still don't know how I'm going to pay for Grammy's care."

Harvey shrugged as he said, "I've taken care of your grandmother's medical bills, Mike."

"What?" Mike could feel how wide his eyes had grown and the burn in them that meant tears. "Why? I lied to you."

"You did," Harvey said, standing in front of Mike. "I needed to get married so that I could be a senior partner; it's one of the older more idiotic stipulations. I chose to go the mail order route because there's no room in my life for the usual way of finding a spouse. Instead of a foreigner who knows nothing about America except what he sees on television and who cannot even speak English, I got you Mike." 

Harvey looked Mike up and down as his smile grew. "And despite just crawling out of bed in clothes that could never be classified as pyjamas and having run your hands through your hair so much it looks like a bird's nest, you're still an attractive man. And my husband. Now come home."

"You're insane," Mike said wonderingly. Harvey threw his head back and laughed and all Mike could do was stare at just how ridiculously handsome he was. 

Harvey noticed the way Mike was looking at him and his smile turned sly, "I've seen marriages based on worse." 

"I-" Mike stopped and stared at Harvey. "I'm too tired for this."

"That's okay," Harvey said, shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around Mike's shoulders. "Ray will have us back at the condo in no time."

"You don't give up, do you?" Mike said, still staring at Harvey as he was manhandled out of the apartment.

"You don't get to be New York City's best closer by giving up," Harvey explained as he directed Mike towards the staircase.

"Tomorrow morning, after I've had some sleep, we're gonna discuss how I'm not a deal," Mike mumbled as they made their way down.

"Yes dear," Harvey replied genially as his eyes strayed to Mike's ass. "Whatever you say dear."

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, thanks for the read! ♥ If you notice any mistakes or think I need to add a tag or change the rating, let me know.


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